Iroldo became dumb for anguish.  It seemed to him as if his very heart had been taken out of his breast.  Nor was Tisbina less miserable.  She was as pale as death, and could hardly speak to him, or bear to look at him.  At length turning her eyes upon him, she said, “And do you believe I could make my poor sorry case out in this world without Iroldo?  Can he bear, himself, to think of leaving his Tisbina? he who has so often said, that if he possessed heaven itself, he should not think it heaven without her?  O dearest husband, there is a way to make death not bitter to either of us.  It is to die together.  I must only exist long enough to see Prasildo!  Death, alas! is in that thought; but the same death will release us.  It need not even be a hard death, saving our misery.  There are poisons so gentle in their deadliness, that we need but faint away into sleep, and so, in the course of a few hours, be delivered.  Our misery and our folly will then alike be ended.”

Iroldo assenting, clasped his wife in distraction; and for a long time they remained in the same posture, half stifled with grief, and bathing one another’s cheeks with their tears.  Afterwards they sent quietly for the poison; and the apothecary made up a preparation in a cup, without asking any questions; and so the husband and wife took it.  Iroldo drank first, and then endeavoured to give the cup to his wife, uttering not a word, and trembling in every limb; not because he was afraid of death, but because he could not bear to ask her to share it.  At length, turning away his face and looking down, he held the cup towards her, and she took it with a chilled heart and trembling hand, and drank the remainder to the dregs.  Iroldo then covered his face and head, not daring to see her depart for the house of Prasildo; and Tisbina, with pangs bitterer than death, left him in solitude.

Tisbina, accompanied by a servant, went to Prasildo, who could scarcely believe his ears when he heard that she was at the door requesting to speak with him.  He hastened down to shew her all honour, leading her from the door into a room by themselves; and when he found her in tears, addressed her in the most considerate and subdued, yet still not unhappy manner, taking her confusion for bashfulness, and never dreaming what a tragedy had been meditated.

Finding at length that her grief was not to be done away, he conjured her by what she held dearest on earth to let him know the cause of it; adding, that he could still die for her sake, if his death would do her any service.  Tisbina spoke at these words; and Prasildo then heard what he did not wish to hear.  “I am in your hands,” answered she, “while I am yet alive.  I am bound to my word, but I cannot survive the dishonour which it costs me, nor, above all, the loss of the husband of my heart.  You also, to whose eyes I have been so welcome, must be prepared for my disappearance from the earth.  Had my affections not belonged to another, ungentle